When Katy Atkinson learned her beloved dad had cancer her life was turned upside down.

And when she lost him to the aggressive brain tumour just eight weeks later the family was left totally devastated.

Ten years later the Stokesley 43-year-old says she still feels cheated of the special moments the family should have been able to share with dad Collin Gill.

Now she has spent a year running a fundraising campaign to raise £10,000 for the charity Brain Tumour Research in memory of the Sunderland University lecturer.

She said: “A decade later, you still feel cheated.

“He never got to enjoy the retirement he had planned and never got to meet his grandaughter.”

Collin was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme aged just 62.

Katy, of Peacocks Close, added: “As a senior lecturer in materials science at Sunderland University, the world of science and research was particularly important to my dad.

“I wanted to do something special to mark the 10 years since we lost him, so I came up with the idea of raising £10,000 to fund brain tumour research.”

Katy raised the money through a variety of events including music and ladies nights, bike rides and coffee mornings.

She had a lot of help from other family members, friends and the community to raise the funds, which has been used to set up a groundbreaking new partnership between the charity Brain Tumour Research and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in collaboration with the UCL Institute of Neurology.

She said: “The new research centre brings hope for 16,000 people diagnosed each year.

“This disease is the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40.

“It is a shocking statistic, as is the fact that research in this area is woefully under-funded, receiving just 1% of the national spent on cancer research.

“At this rate, it could take another 100 years to find a cure.”

Katy and her partner Greg Baldwin, went to London on Thursday to the launch event, which was hosted by Brain Tumour Research Patron, the Rt Hon John Bercow MP – Speaker of the House of Commons.